


Foghattin'

by YogSoThots



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Accents, Alcohol, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Asexual Nezu | Piers (Pokemon), Asexual Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Everyone is over 21, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Gen, Good Older Sibling Nezu | Piers (Pokemon), Music, No Smut, Nostalgia, Not Actually Unrequited Love, POV First Person, Post-Game but no Spoilers, Reader-Insert, Self-Indulgent, Siblings, Slight pining, Smoking, i guess au where gloria is the twin that loses to leon and victor wins, i like the MCs being twins HC so i'm keeping it, marnie is a hell of a cook, quarantine cope fic, soft Piers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogSoThots/pseuds/YogSoThots
Summary: Gloria heads over to Marnie and Piers' place for dinner and to check out their record shop haul but intrudes on something she's not sure she's supposed to see. It makes her think about how families work, and what she thinks about the distinct lack of relationship she and Piers have going on.
Relationships: Nezu | Piers/Yuuri | Gloria
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	Foghattin'

**Author's Note:**

> I make no money from this--don't sue me unless you're really into pocket lint. I love Sw/Sh even if I haven't finished it yet, there's so much GOOD in there! I've managed to stay C19 negative so far but I'm not doing well with the isolation, so expect a bunch of these trickling in as I slowly shape my Star Wars projects (Bloom specifically) with the new canon, to be completed in 2021.
> 
> I've tried to render their accents as good as I can, tbh they have a lot in common with how I sound when I'm by myself or with ppl from where I am. I'm running with quite a few headcanons here but they all work pretty well together, and I can always expound if ppl want to know things.

So I'm minding my business one day trying to proofread some stuff for Opal, as you do, and I get a message out of the blue from Piers with a photo: a milk crate loaded with old records. He's struck gold.

P: wanna come down and check the haul? m got herself a crate and bbys first table, im tearing up worse than her first day at school  
P: shes cookin up something spicy and got some sprite wines at the corner shop, want in?  
P: either way just LOOK

He sent me a second one of Marnie with what looked like a black suitcase covered in stickers but was a portable turntable. Another with a plastic-wrapped Combat Rock album and her signature smile. I sent back an affirmative and started packing my bag. Piers wasn't big on overnights and that was fine--but I'd bring my extras in case. Toss in some clothes, my meds, charger, and rolled the cord around my hitachi, making sure to wrap it up in the pillowcase I'd bring for used clothes. I didn't know if I'd need it or not, but better to have and not need than need and not have. Challenger life taught me to be two things above all others: prepared, and discreet.

We'd been messing about for a while now, but not enough that it drew attention. It was true--Piers was openly asexual, but that didn't mean that he didn't want to...you know, DO sex stuff sometimes. He'd caught my fancy pretty hard when I was on the Challenge but anything wouldn't have been legal since we were due to fight, but after Lee beat me pretty soundly and I decided what I wanted to do with my life, I thought it wouldn't do no harm to pop in sometimes on my other rival and her hot, fun brother.

Especially since I wouldn't be seeing much of Vic after his big win. It was fine, really! I loved that he could live his dream. It was just nice to be around people again for real and not for the likes. I didn't travel anymore--I ended up leaving my mom's place and finding a steal on a two-room cottage outside Ballonlea to be closer to the gym and write for Opal's programs, but that meant I had to take my life in my hands in a bloody air-car every time I wanted to hang out with someone from my Challenge days and I'd never pass up hanging with these two, so that happened...much more than I'd like. It was so much faster than the train, though. So I'd complain the whole time, but I'd do it.

Marnie knew this. So she started inviting me over even more. Piers was spending way more time around the house with her off training all the time, so he was always there. And popping round for dinner and a catch-up sometimes turned into heading down to what counts as the pitch in Spikemuth, sometimes sharing a cigarette between sets when I could make his shows, little things here and there, until one night we were ducking out from his fans in one of the many twisty alleys and we might have made out in the rain pressed into the bricks by a dumpster. But that was gross and Marnie was off camping in the Wild Area that week, so he took me back to their flat. We had enough fun to do it whenever I happened to be in town but no pressure--he didn't commit by choice and it was refreshing to know where I stood, to be completely honest. We lived so far away either way--it simply wasn't practical. 

A couple hours later, I survived the trip but I can't say the same for my favourite snapback--I'd have to have Hop get me another one. But I could worry about that later. I arrived safely and my host-gift wasn't harmed--it was wet and I needed to get the hell inside. 

I thought of that night every time I passed that alley on my way to their place, though, with it being so close. They were right in the middle of town in a double-zoned nightmare of a converted warehouse/flats. On one hand, they had no neighbors and thus no volume limits. On the other, the place was put together by people who probably didn't pass maths.

Marnie had the door for me as soon as I rocked up.

"Hey! Good to see ya, drop yer boots, Piers just swiffered in here today."

I gave her a side-hug and did so--hung up my drenched hoodie while I was at it. Both of theirs were already neatly hung and it almost made me sad--mom's entryway looked the same, cluttered with shoes but not dirty. My place might have been cozy in theory, but it was missing this.

In the weirdly-shaped very industrial sitting room, I could hear "God Gave Rock n' Roll To You" by KISS from all the way downstairs. Marnie was in her PJs--I'd wait to see what he was wearing before I changed though, didn't want to make myself too comfortable and be weird. I still worried about that even as a grown professional. The smell of fried potato curry and Marnie's A+ homemade garlic knots was knee-buckling--I'd brought a frozen cheesecake I'd been saving that could make the car trip, but it was one of the good ones that had three sorts: tuxedo for me, strawberry for Marnie, and plain for Piers. She took it and put it away for later, coming back with one of those six-pack wine coolers of indeterminate berry. I took it and slammed it a bit hard--they'd sprung for the more alcoholic ones and I couldn't chug these like they were roseli soda. 

"Thanks," I said, trying to play off the burn in my sinuses. "Can I head up?"

She nodded and started back off towards the kitchen.

"I'll come and knock ya when it's done, at least keep yer top on!" Marnie called up the stairs. 

"I don't even take that kind of sass from me Mam, Marn," I said. But the further up the stairs I got, I promptly shut right up. Something didn't sound right, I'd been up here and listening to music a couple times and Piers had one of them big, ancient sound sets with all the knobs, and it made perfect sound. Those old rock records were made to be played on systems like it. This wasn't quite that.

The questionable pipes made the acoustics upstairs way off then. Because that's how that works.

I sipped my drink and paused outside his door, pressing my ear as close as I could without looking like an absolute twit.

"Ooh, baby I tried to make it, I just got lost along the way...  
But every time I look at you, no matter what I'm goin' through  
It's easy to see  
And every time I hold you, the things I never told you  
Seem to come easily..."

He was playing his acoustic and singing along. That's what I was hearing.

It sounded like Piers was right there in the room jamming with Paul Stanley and it was haunting. I was used to raucous party anthems like the one that I came in to--sometimes those crept into the set the guys played for funsies, too. See, Piers had a secret passion for 80s glam rock in case you couldn't tell from his aesthetic, but those glam bands didn't do stuff like this, did they? Surely not KISS, either. I knew any normal person would knock and go inside, do anything other than what I was doing right now, which was standing there absorbing this undoubtably private moment but I was frozen.

The song ended, and there was a soft lo-fi fuzz for a brief moment. A curling, screeching electric guitar cut through the fuzz and the moment was gone.

It was enough to break the spell. I knocked, a bit harder than I'd intended, but surely enough to be proper.

"Come in?"

I squeezed in, immediately hit with the miasma of sandalwood and patchouli that was normal for in here, with a side of sweet spicy clove smoke. He liked those when he was writing. I loved it in here, it was exactly what you think a cool older brother's room is like--covered in posters spanning decades, tapestry on the ceiling, and that sound system could have been an ice box. He'd left the acoustic on the bed for an unplugged electric. Piers waved from His Chair, a papasan upholstered with apricorn balls. Yeah, THAT old.

Piers was exactly as I'd expected him--worn out black tee and jeans, mismatched Hello Skitty socks. His Obstagoon was curled up right under the speaker and the bed was a total wreck--covered in hair (human, pokemon, whatever) and odd-shaped pillows, a square amber ashtray set on the corner, clove still burning. I sat on the bed and accidentally knocked the crate with my foot. His face lit up in a way I wasn't used to seeing.

"Oh, you've GOT to see this, Block Street closed out a bunch of their oldies and you bet we was there to grab it up, Marn's got a good eye for the thriftin," he said, flipping through the titles. Over near the ashtray was the empty sleeve for KISS: Revenge--I turned it over and had a look, mentally writing a playlist for later. "See anythin you like? I was just..." he gestured at the room. 

I didn't quite know what he was saying and I didn't want to admit I'd been swooning over his acoustic performance in the hall like the creep I was.

"Old man called it Foghattin'," he said. "Seems like you know what it is too. Here, find something good to put on. I'm gonna check on food and you want another? Ya come in with a empty already, didja have one for the nerves in the car?" he snorted and took my empty. "Nah, if they let you drink in those things I'd have already ended up in Alola by now," I said. Everything was normal and I didn't get caught being weird. I could relax. Piers disappeared and I was left to comb through the crate.

I really did go through the box and I'll admit, I know a little. I recognized all the Fleetwood Macs, one Rumors for each of them. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Madman Across the Water. Had a Skid Row in there too--I reckoned his voice would sound good on "I Remember You". Mom loves talking about her and Dad's trainer days and the old dance halls and she still listens to the same stuff, just on her RoPhone now. It's true what they said though, vinyl really did sound different sometimes. That's what I was looking for, one of the records that might sound a bit crap on the phone speakers but would come to life in his stereo.

I briefly considered pulling out Night Ranger and begging him to do Sister Christian--it's even by a brother to his sister! That was lovely, it wasn't the Dubliners on Vic's laptop, all tinny and antiquated and awful. He might actually do it, too, sing if it wasn't too much. I'd love to hear that again not in a stadium full of fifty thousand screaming fans and maybe also not squatting outside his bedroom door.  
But no--I saw something even better. I wasn't about to try to fool with the stereo, though, I valued my life and didn't have a degree in engineering. When he came back up, he had two frosty pinap-y-cocos in hand. "Dinner in twenty, find us a good one?"

I gave it to him and he put it in the thing--and it was quiet for a bit again. It was an old system, so as it loaded the record, it chugged and made more quiet white noise. But it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. He popped our caps off and tossed them in a pitcher on his desk and joined me on the bed. He took a long swig, set his drink on the floor, and tucked his arms behind his head, leaving a bit of open space for me to ease into. The opening riffs sound more machine than music and it startled Piers' buddy awake, but when he figured out what it was, he settled back down. A soaring piano solo cut in with the machine noise, and then drums. Very big, very dramatic. The oscillating bars on the front of the thing blinked soft green. I could see how Big Boy over there could sleep in here even with the noise.

I took down the second bottle and felt the familiar anticipation creep up my neck. I knew this record front to back, it was one of my mom's favourites and thinking about her and my dad on their journey, doing exactly what Piers and I were about to do?  
It didn't have to be love to be something golden and good.

"Mum loved this one," he said softly. "Certainly explains a lot, don't it?"  
"Mine too."  
"You know, Jim Steinman is one of my songwriting inspirations and he did pretty much all the lyrics for that entire...like...friend-group of musicians," he started, then stopped. " 'S boring for you, I bet."

I shook my head.  
"No, not at all. I feel like we don't get a lot of connection to the trainers and everything that came before us sometimes even though history is so important to Galar like, as a place, you know? But music is something that travels across age and space, I know you get it. And yes, I love trivia, me and Vic used to fight over Jeopardy as kids and that's not changed at all. I could listen to you read the fuckin phone book."  
He didn't say anything for a bit, just looked at a non-specific place on the ceiling. Moved a bit of my hair out of his elbow.  
And then LAUNCHED a hyper-beam of music history. 

"I do love this one, though, I was so stoked to find it in the bargain bin! Imagine, puttin this in the bin. The album itself was from this unproduced musical, Neverland, a futuristic rock-opera Peter Pan, what Steinman wrote for a workshop back in the day," he said. "Had some help from...you know the fella who bangs the drums all day? You have to know the one."

Todd Rundgren, and I did. Victor was obsessed with that song from ages five to seven.

"People was calling this thing that him and Mealoaf created something like Springsteen, but I don't see it. It ain't got the same kind of rawness to it. The Boss may be leather, but Meatloaf is velvet whether he likes it or not."  
I laughed and basked in his fascination with the minutia until Marnie came upstairs. Both of them still ate dinner at the table, so we'd have to come down soon. It was just another one of the nice things that reminded me of home.

It was quiet in there again. The incense had long burnt down. I'd ended up rolled into his side and suddenly very aware of everywhere we touched. But it didn't fry my brain like it sometimes did. We'd kinda come back to earth--the song ended and we had a short time before the next one came on again as the thing worked. It seemed much longer than it was, it was so intoxicating in there. I knew I wasn't past buzzed and certainly not tipsy, these things were lighter than beer.

For a while I thought Piers might be asleep, but he'd just melted into the bed. He leaned up and blinked slow and he was close enough that I could tell he'd had a couple berry coolers before I'd got there and I thought he was going to kiss me right then. I held my breath and everything. 

But he was interrupted by bagpipes, pathetically imitating the tune of "Wasted Youth". We both fucking cracked up. I'd forgotten this was tacked on at the end as a transition. But it broke the tension. We got up, smoothed our clothes, went down, and he just let the record run. The next several songs were loud enough to be pleasant background noise at the table.

As we passed dishes around and talked about our days, I couldn't help but miss this. I knew it wasn't mine though--I'd have fun here whenever I could and treasure this for what it was, but maybe I'd work a bit harder on my OkPoke profile when I got back. Try to find the things I loved in Piers in someone that did want the same kind of future I did. Maybe also poke Vic and see if he can duck out of Champ Time and have dinner at my new place. Maybe invite Opal?

"Aye tart you gonna keep hoggin the rolls or?"

Marnie poked me and took the bread basket out of my hands. Oh my god, I'd stopped to think all that. Maybe I did need a lie-down and food to soak up the alcohol. I told them both as much, and though they teased me (lightweight!) I was welcome to stay tonight and Piers would give me a lift to the train station tomorrow. Marnie was lucky--I love Victor but he's who you call when you need to lie to Mom and Dad over a long time, not who you call when you've had too much to drink at a party and need help in the moment. This was nowhere near that dire, but I couldn't help but think about it sometimes. I guess that's the difference in having a twin and someone who's older than you. I was secretly glad I'd waited so long to approach him. He wouldn't have seen me or treated me as anything other than the kid who's trying to beat his sister. 

Everything worked out just fine this way.

After dinner, the three of us ran the pokemon around outside for their Nightly and turned in ourselves. It took a solid half-hour to chase Obstagoon back down, he'd taken off halfway down the block like a naughty bastard, but Piers caught up to him and brought him back inside. We took turns in the shower--Spikemuth was filthy when you've got to run down a pokemon twice your size and triple the ornery. Piers left the door open as an invitation, but tonight I decided I didn't want to take it. I had other ideas.

Right before bed, we cut the cake and stood around the kitchen stuffing our faces and comparing classic Styx and weird 90s experimental Styx. It escalated into shouting at one point, which turned into a food fight, and Piers ended up doing the floors over again while Marnie and I wiped small bits of cake from...well, it got fucking everywhere. She was bushed after that and turned in, reminded Piers to adjust the bass so she could sleep. We said our goodnights and it was just me and him up.

We stayed up far too late going through the stack, Piers insisted we were testing them and it was necessary but I knew the truth--sometimes it's lonely and you just want to fall back on your bed and listen to classic rock with someone who gets you and the thing you love and doesn't want anything from you.

I was glad he'd thought to call me in this case.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a reference to an experience that I don't know has a name but definitely has a feel--but the word itself is from a Family Guy sketch where the family leaves the house for the day and Chris' monkey comes out of the closet to smoke a doob and absorb music--specifically, Slow Ride by Foghat. 
> 
> This is what Piers was listening to:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrUw1wsG43Y
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUi_Dtcg0C4
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc
> 
> and i cannot for the life of me remember which transition they used the bagpipes in, I wanna say it's from the beginning of Good Girls Go To Heaven (But Bad Girls Go Everywhere)


End file.
